Priorities: We`re not sure which countries plan to send...

December 02, 1985|By Skip Myslenski & Linda Kay.

Priorities: We`re not sure which countries plan to send athletes to the Seoul, Korea, Olympics, but we can tell you what the athletes will be eating once they get there. A total of 249 food items already have been selected for the 1988 Games. According to the Korea Herald, they include 75 Korean delights, 43 Chinese goodies, 19 Japanese treats, 81 Western-style

specialities and--you should have known this was coming--31 fast-food items. Let`s elaborate on the Korean cuisine. The 75 varieties were pinpointed through a taste test given to visiting foreigners during the spring. Thumbs up went to pulgogi (broiled beef), kalbigui (broiled beef ribs), kalbijim (stewed beef ribs) and pulgalbi (charcoal-broiled beef ribs). But athletes shouldn`t fret if none of that appeals. There`s always the Western cuisine, which includes filet mignon, breaded veal cutlet, grilled salmon steak and that old standby, the hamburger. Korea`s Ministry of Health and Social Affairs has set down guidelines concerning the ingredients for all Olympic foods in an effort to cater--you should pardon the expression--to foreign palates.

Pound for pound

He`s an ex-Olympic swimmer (Rome, 1960), and though there`s not a bit of excess fat on his stately figure, Richard Pound will be throwing his weight around when the 92 members of the stodgy International Olympic Committee convene in Lisbon next week. Pound, a vice president of the IOC and a practicing attorney in Montreal, is championing a cause many think is doomed to fail: He wants to put professional athletes in the Games. That strikes some on the ever-aging IOC board as blasphemy, contrary to the principles of amateurism upon which the Games were founded. More importantly, it scares the beejeebers out of the Eastern Bloc nations, who have no desire to send their nonprofessionals (we use the term loosely) against players from the National Hockey League or National Basketball Association. Nevertheless, Pound is not easily dissuaded. In fact, he thinks he`ll prevail. ``A one-in-four chance it`ll happen by 1988,`` he says. ``1992? 100 percent. It`s got to happen. It`s just a matter of when. The Olympic Games really should be the premier competition in the world. If they`re less than the best, they won`t last.``

Under Pound`s proposal, all athletes would have to agree to do two things: (1) take a drug test; and (2) not take money for participating. He says: ``I have to lobby and I have to package. I have to work out a way to make this seem as sensible as it really is. Properly reasoned, it could appeal to those who don`t have fundamental political opposition.`` But what of those who do? ``There`s lots of dialectical points you can make,`` he says. ``For instance, basketball is very popular among the have-nots in our society. It`s very odd for the Soviet Union to discriminate against a less-favored class. What they`re really saying is that the Eastern Bloc countries are trying to win all the medals.``

Pound says the public is sick of the double standard applied in discussions of amateurism. He says people are well aware that so-called amateurs get under-the-table money. ``We could go downhill and become a glorified high school competition, or we can remain at the pinnacle,`` he says. ``People have said to me, `But you could have John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl fighting for a gold medal.` And I`ve replied, `What could be more pure than two guys, who don`t pick up a racket for less than $25,000 normally, fighting it out for their country?` ``

News, notes and nonsense

The Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee has revised its budget for 1988 after signing what it considered a disappointing contract with NBC for the TV rights to the Games. The network deal is worth a minimum of $300 million

(though the SLOOC can realize a maximum $500 million through a risk-sharing formula), and that minimum was half of the SLOOC`s anticipated target. One of the profit-making ventures the SLOOC has undertaken to offset the deficit: